


You Can Let Go

by OneTrueEmotion



Series: Shaken not Stirred (A compilation of tumblr drabbles) [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cancer, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTrueEmotion/pseuds/OneTrueEmotion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted by a post on tumblr.</p>
<p>"Derek Hale was a twenty-four year old recluse with terminal cancer. He knew he was going to die; he knew the cancer eating away at his lungs was going to eventually snatch his life away, slipping right through his fingers like the wind ruffling his hair. His sister Laura didn’t find his lifestyle to be healthy, finding him “too depressing to look at, moping around the house all the time.” So that was how he found himself going to a support group for young adults with cancer — to “socialize with his peers,” as Laura said cheerfully. And that was how he met Stiles Stilinski, a twenty year old boy with chronic leukemia."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> The post that inspired this: http://roseandthebeast.tumblr.com/post/33306506306/sterek-au-derek-hale-was-a-twenty-four-year-old
> 
>  
> 
> “I’m in love with you,” Stiles said quietly.
> 
> “Stiles,” Derek replied.
> 
> “I am,” he said. He was staring at him, and he could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

It’s late, and the only sound in the moonlit room is the mechanical suck and whoosh of the ventilator machine Derek is attached to. It’s amazing how something so often taken for granted such as breathing can turn into such a chore. Each breath hurts, like someone taking a torch to his chest and burning him from the inside out. Sometimes he tries to avoid it by holding his breath, but that just makes the next breath he does take explode in even sharper pain, nearly enough to pass out from it. Sure he’s on drugs, he’s on enough drugs to make the entire world fuzzy around the edges, to make it hard to recognize his sister some days, but they don’t make drugs strong enough to rid Derek of his pain.

Only part of that pain is physical.

It’s been two months since Stiles lost his fight. Derek was still living at Laura’s when she came to tell him, mere hours after Derek had visited him in the hospital. He didn’t believe it at first, couldn’t believe it. Stiles had been perfectly fine while he was there, smiling and joking like he always was. Stiles was the only person who could make Derek smile anymore; he couldn’t be gone.

The anger came next, filling Derek with a hot, burning rage at the injustice of the universe. Stiles didn’t deserve to die. He was so young, so smart, with such promise in his life. Before Stiles got sick, he had wanted to go into politics, to do good in the world. Derek had laughed when he first heard it, thinking Stiles too good and pure to make it, but then, if anybody could run with the wolves and not get eaten up, it was Stiles.

When the anger left him, it took what was left of Derek’s energy with it. The struggle to breath was as much from the ‘what ifs’ clouding his head as the cells eating his body. If he had stayed with Stiles longer that day, would the boy have fought harder to stay with him? If Stiles’ cancer had been found earlier, would he have been able to live?

If Derek had said ‘I love you too’, would that have made a difference?

He ended up in the hospital the next day. By some twist of fate—that he had yet to decide if it was wonderful or cruel—he ended up in the same room that Stiles had lived the last few months of his life in. The room that Stiles had died in. During the day, when Laura was at work and Derek was alone in the room, he would relive their times together, with Stiles in the bed that Derek was occupying.

_“I can’t…”_

_“I know, it’s okay.” Stiles reached out a trembling hand and Derek helped him bring it to his cheek, nuzzling into it. “You don’t have to say it out loud.”_

_“What’s the point? We’re going to lose each other.”_

_“Then we’ll just have to find each other again.”_

At night, in this state halfway between sleep and consciousness, it’s like Stiles is still here with him.

He can almost feel Stiles’ hand on his cheek again, feeling at once like a whisper and yet firmer, stronger than his memories. When Derek opens his eyes, though, he’s alone in his room. So he closes his eyes again, waits for the cold touch to come back.

“I miss you.”

There’s no response, and yet there is. No words float down to his ear, but he can feel it in his heart. _You don’t have to miss me, I’m right here._

“It’s not enough. I miss seeing you, I miss touching you.”

_You don’t have to miss me, I’m right here._

“I can’t do this anymore. You were the only thing that kept me going, and now you’re gone.”

_You don’t have to miss me, I’m right here._

Finally, Derek understands. Stiles isn’t there to tell him to hold on, Stiles is there to tell him it’s okay to let go. Calmness settles down around him as he takes that last mental step into acceptance, and he feels Stiles’ touch move down from his cheek, down his neck, to rest on his chest, and the cold touch eases the fiery pain that has been a part of him for so long.

He takes a breath, and it doesn’t hurt.

“Open your eyes.”

He does, and he’s no longer in the dark, cold hospital room. It’s warm and bright here, and Stiles is standing above him, beaming down at him.

“I told you we’d find each other again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you like this feel free to follow me on tumblr, onetrueemotion. Don't be scared to say hi or throw me a prompt!


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